Leila Christenbury and Ken Lindblom pack the voices of teachers and students, activities, stories, recommended reading, and references into the journey they lay out for new and novice ELA teachers. Forty-year veteran Linda BIondi recommends their book highly.
If bibliotherapy is an effective way to ease the growing pains of adolescents, writes 7th grade teacher Laurie Lichtenstein, The Outsiders is “the gold standard of therapy in middle grades literature.” It’s the only whole class novel she teaches each year.
Ariel Sacks says teachers who read The Flexible ELA Classroom will get to know “an enthusiastic, skilled teacher” effectively applying “many of the best current teaching trends.” Amber Chandler’s practical, student centered ideas include flexible differentiation, PBL infusion, family involvement and more.
Thematic text sets that tap into the social worlds and narrative driven lives of adolescents can spark “unstoppable learning,” say literacy educators Katie and Chris Cunningham, who share several text-set examples and a 10-step process for building your own.
ELA teacher Amber Chandler is in a quandary. She wants to give her students time each week to “read for enjoyment” but knows the research on Sustained Silent Reading reveals little impact on fluency. Can she bridge these muddied waters? All ideas welcomed!
The Teaching Life / Working Draft
by Kevin Hodgson · Published 10/21/2013 · Last modified 12/05/2019
In their K6 building, Kevin Hodgson & his 6th grade teammates often feel like middle school teachers in elementary teacher bodies. Mostly, they make it work.
About Working Draft / Working Draft
by Kevin Hodgson · Published 10/07/2013 · Last modified 11/19/2019
MiddleWeb’s new English/LA blogger Kevin Hodgson (aka, dogtrax) introduces himself and promises to learn from and with teachers and other readers.
Articles / Teaching the Whole Adolescent
by MiddleWeb · Published 07/02/2013 · Last modified 11/06/2020
Eighth graders present a video and describe the creation of their “I AM Wall” – part of a project on stereotyping that included reading S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.
In The Literacy Cookbook: A Practical Guide to Effective Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Instruction, Sarah Tantillo’s banquet of tasty recipes for good literacy instruction are also a helpful ELA Common Core resource, says reviewer Linda Biondi.
In Amy Benjamin’s Math in Plain English: Literacy Strategies for the Mathematics Classroom, says reviewer Shelly Sims, there’s finally a book combining literacy strategies with what we know about math thinking and problem-solving.
